


Survival, Inquiry, and Sophistication

by zulu



Category: House M.D.
Genre: 07-04, M/M, for:joe_pike_junior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-11
Updated: 2007-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:03:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The history of every major galactic civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?', the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question, 'Where shall we have lunch?'"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survival, Inquiry, and Sophistication

**Survival, Inquiry, and Sophistication**

_Survival_

The sandwich is corned beef and Swiss on pumpernickel, piled high with sauerkraut and showing hints of Russian dressing on the edges of the crust. It looks wonderful, and it smells delicious. Resting most of his weight on his cane, House leans out from the fridge and eyes the closed bathroom door suspiciously. He tilts his head, listening--is Wilson _singing?_\--and grimaces, snapping the tupperware lid shut. If Wilson's pattern holds, he'll be another twenty minutes, most of them spent mindlessly blow-drying his hair into the perfect state of artful floppiness. House has already ignored three pages (Chase, Cameron, and Cameron again--hope really does spring eternal). He figures his patient's mostly dead, and in need of a miracle.

With a snort, House shoves the Reuben back in the fridge, stuffing it behind a jar of cherry preserves (and how much does Wilson have him whipped that he has _preserves_ keeping company with his mustard and beer?). He glances toward the bathroom again, but the shower pours on, oblivious. House showered late last night, a stupidly considerate insomnia cure--if Wilson hadn't been sleeping on the couch, he'd have pounded out some Wagner for a lullaby.

He grabs his pop-tarts when the toaster spits out its little slices of purgatory (he's certain they were delicious once, before Wilson seduced him with pancakes) and hears the shower spray turn to a trickle. He takes huge messy bites of fake pastry and faker fruit filling, and finishes the most important meal of the day by thoughtfully licking too-sweet icing from between his thumb and forefinger. There's something going on. He doesn't know what it is yet.

Today could be a very good day.

"I'm going," he shouts in the general direction of the blow dryer's whirr, and picks up his helmet. "The early bird dodges the clinic hour!"

And he would have, too, but he's still thinking about the sandwich and how his fridge's contents have changed recently without so much as a by-your-leave, and his finely tuned radar for the imposing sight of Cuddy's breasts bearing down on him in a righteous froth is obviously on the fritz.

"What the hell is this?" she asks the moment his gaze is sucked down into the black hole of her cleavage, from which no man has ever escaped. She slaps a file folder down on the clinic counter, and House frowns at it, then her.

"Test results," he says, and grabs.

Cuddy snatches them out of reach. "House, the MRI machine is not a toy," she says.

"Doctor-patient confidentiality," he says. "She wasn't supposed to tell anyone about that."

Cuddy takes a deep breath--House's eyes fall past the event horizon--and says, "What possible excuse could you have for this kind of idiotic behaviour?"

"Wilson's attacking me with sandwiches," House says.

That seems to be answer enough, because Cuddy stops short and shakes her head as if she's trying to clear her ears. "I'm not going to ask if you said what I just heard you say," she starts, "but--"

"Good," House interrupts. "Because I'd hate to have to explain that whole 'ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer' thing." He shifts left and then moves right, making a sweet steal of the file on his way past her. He turns around and waves it at her as he pushes his way on to the elevator. "He's trying sneak attacks," he calls. "Sapping my defenses. It's a siege."

In the conference room, the three blind mice are staring dolefully at their own copies of the test results House took from Cuddy. "Oh, cheer up," he says in his best buck-up-li'l-campers voice. He dumps his helmet and pack on the floor next to the coffee machine. "The farmer's wife hasn't cut off your tails _yet_. We've still got a patient to save!"

"She's dying," Chase says, looking up from his hands--he hasn't slept, and it shows.

House toasts having minions to take on his night shifts with a cup of fresh-brewed coffee, Cameron's finest, and gestures for the explanations to continue.

"We've got her on full pressors and the chest tube's draining the edema," Foreman says. "But we're barely keeping ahead of this thing."

"She's drowning in her own fluids," Cameron adds hopelessly.

House sighs and shakes his head. They're all such little _darlings_ when they mope. It's sickening. "Did _anyone_ notice the nursery rhyme metaphor I used to start the day?" he asks. "Or am I only talking to hear the sound of my own voice?"

Foreman raises an eyebrow. "I'm guessing it was both," he says.

"Mmm," House says, bored already. The symptoms on the whiteboard make some very pretty patterns, the kind that tie together nicely with this morning's gift-wrapped lab results. He probably shouldn't mention to Cuddy that yesterday's MRI stunt was unnecessary after all. "So what is it?" he asks, sitting down and waving his hand, inviting their guesses like the benevolent teacher he is. When Cameron launches into an improbable explanation and Chase tops her with his own even more bizarre theory, House tunes them out and thinks about more pressing matters.

Wilson knows he likes pumpernickel better than rye bread, and that he won't touch that Thousand Island crap if he can help it. The bread must have been fresh, because House certainly would have noticed it in his fridge if it'd been there last night. The cheese wasn't melted, so the sandwich won't be a mess of soggy cabbage like the cafeteria makes when he doesn't bother to yell at them.

In short, Wilson got up early to make a lunch for him, and not just any lunch--his favourite. The list of possible conclusions is a short one, and House already has enough hunches to plug up the holes in a dedicated therapist's calendar for a year.

"We've got to stop treating it systematically and find the source," Cameron says, turning on him in exasperation, "and are you even listening to us?"

House looks up, frowning. How is he supposed to figure out what to do about Wilson's appalling lack of subtlety when he keeps getting interrupted? "What could possibly give you that idea?" he asks.

"Because for the last five minutes you haven't insulted us once," Foreman says.

"Fine," House says. He points at Chase. "Useless Kiwi." To Cameron: "What the hell did you do with your hair today, attack it with a weedwacker?" And finally, Foreman: "This isn't brain surgery, you know...oh, wait, it _is_. Shouldn't you have figured this out already?"

"Um, no, because there aren't any neurological symptoms," Foreman says. "She has a Glasgow of fifteen. This is Chase's case."

"Not any more." House pushes himself to his feet and heads for the door. Direct and embarrassing confrontation feels like a good solution to the sandwich problem, and besides, he doesn't have any other puzzles left to solve right now. "Amazing that the ancient Egyptians were better at this than you seem to be," he says. "You might want to visit a museum for their fine selection of bronze drills."

Cameron says, "Trepanning?"

"Yep. Gotta get those humours properly balanced," House says. "Are we finally all on the same page? Chase, how's your remedial reading program coming--getting the hang of all this American lingo?"

"NPE explains the fever," Chase says. "Not the nursery rhyme metaphor, though."

House waves that off. "It was brilliant, trust me, but its time has passed."

"You're thinking it's a subarachnoid bleed?" Foreman asks.

"Gee, do you _think_?" House asks. "Get a head CT, book an OR, go forth and heal. I'm busy." He leaves the office, stalks next door, and bursts in with, "Is this how you proposed to your first three wives?"

Wilson's head jerks up from his boring piles of work. He must've left home only a few minutes behind House, and House frowns a bit; thinking "Wilson" and "home" in the same breath is strangely satisfying.

"Assuming I knew what you're talking about..." Wilson starts, and House shakes his head and moves further into the room, sitting on the couch. He bumps his cane against his chin, suddenly less sure than he should be about ragging on Wilson's choices of lunch meats.

"There are brussel sprouts in my crisper," he says instead.

"I'm surprised you know what a crisper is," Wilson returns, tossing his pen on the desktop and sitting back in his chair. "Or what brussel sprouts are, actually."

"Exactly!" House says. He gets to his feet again and starts pacing. And it's not just the fridge, either: there are exotic shampoos in his shower, and cologne sitting calm as you please next to all the bottles of expired (but maybe worth keeping) pills in his medicine cabinet. "Your journals are being delivered to my place!" he adds, because they are: Dr. James E. Wilson printed boldly in some plebian type-face above House's address as if it's entirely ordinary for someone to _move in with him_ without him figuring out it was going on.

"You know, it's comforting to think that in some other part of the multiverse, I might have a clue about where this is coming from," Wilson says, watching him with a mild look.

House glares at him. "You're not fooling anybody with that face anymore," he says. "You made me a lunch!"

"To stop you from stealing mine!" Wilson shakes his head. "I don't even know why I'm surprised you didn't take it. I should've known you'd rather be contrary."

"That's not the point!"

"I'm seriously starting to wonder if there is one."

House stops pacing and stands in front of Wilson, who's apparently decided that he's not going to get anything done until House is finished. He's right, but he's not supposed to just give up working because it's pointless to try while House is ranting. Pointless work is what Wilson _does_. He's already halfway into an eye-roll, and if he were standing up, House knows he'd have his hands on his hips. "You've stopped looking for a new apartment," House accuses, trying to find the high moral ground. It's made all the more difficult because he's not sure he had it in the first place.

Wilson's calm cracks and he throws up his hands. "Because you erased my messages! I don't know, maybe I took it as your mind-game way of telling me I was welcome to stay!"

House doesn't even stop to acknowledge that hit. He thinks about bringing up the subject of rent, except that might lead to talk of Wilson's grocery bills and Lady's salary. Besides, roommates pay rent, not guests, and this was never supposed to be permanent until apparently he decided it should be, but now that it is he's not sure how to run away from it. "Oh, so my couch is really that comfortable?" he asks, and he's going for nasty but of course Wilson sees right through it, that bastard.

"No," he says quietly, "it's not, really. But I'm used to it."

House hates that Wilson can bring his divorce into this, as if it wasn't all his fault in the first place, which it wasn't (this once). If the universe worked rationally, then Wilson would be the cheater and House could mock him happily. Wilson's not supposed to be the cast-off and House shouldn't be the one he goes to for comfort. Except now, apparently. Maybe the third time really is the charm.

"Look, House, you had the ingredients--"

House stares down that lie and searches Wilson's face for what's really going on. He sucks at lying, except when he doesn't, and House narrows his eyes. Wilson's got _guileless_ down to one very manipulative art and right now he's oozing with sincerity.

"I didn't mind doing it." Wilson shrugs and picks up his pen. "I brought the damn sandwich, anyway." He points to the mini-fridge in the corner of his office. "If you think it'll taste better stolen, you can pick my lock while I'm on rounds and sneak it out later."

House lets a grin escape before he can stop himself. Wilson sees and smiles back. "See if you can get the Mission Impossible theme playing on the PA system while you're at it," he adds.

"Well, it's no fun if you already know I'm going to do it," House says, and stomps across to the fridge. He pulls out the tupperware container and shoves it under one arm. "There. Happy now?"

Wilson grins--the small quirky grin that means he's gotten his way. House glares at him. Something's going on. He leaves Wilson's office and pointedly doesn't slam the door, because he hasn't lost yet and he's definitely not pouting.

Foreman's waving his arms and getting all wide-eyed about something unimportant when House gets back to the conference room. "Head trauma four _months_ ago," he's saying, and muttering other things under his breath about Chase's ability to take a history.

House grimaces. "Are you _still_ going on about the patient?" he asks. "Didn't I cure her already?"

"The CT confirmed the hematoma," Foreman starts. "She's scheduled for surgery at--"

"Forget I pretended to care," House says, and tunes out the rest of the details. He was right. The house always wins. He smiles, glancing through the test results, and then cuts Foreman's explanations short with, "I'm taking an early lunch."

"It's nine-thirty in the morning," Cameron says.

"I'm not a slave to your arbitrary conception of time!" House says indignantly. He takes a look at his watch, does a double take, and says, "Hey, isn't it paperwork o'clock?" He throws the patient's chart in front of Cameron, and leaves them gaping behind him as he goes through to his office.

He sits back in his desk chair, lifting his leg up to the desk. He's suddenly hungry--it's almost as if those pop tarts he ate for breakfast had no nutritional value at all. Opening the container, House grabs the Reuben. He takes a bite and can't quite hold back a moan of appreciation. The sauerkraut juice spills over his fingers, messy and sour and perfect. Something's going on, and House still isn't sure what.

It's going to be a very good day.

* * *

_Inquiry_

House's alarm goes off at eight AM. It also goes off at eight-eleven, eight-twenty-three, and eight-thirty-eight. At eight-forty-seven the Who are singing about how they can see for miles and miles, so House doesn't bother slapping the snooze button.

Over the music he listens to Wilson in the kitchen, where he's apparently thrashing a home invader with a frying pan, at least judging by all the crashing of pots and banging of cupboards. House considers getting up and helping out by bashing Wilson over the head with his cane, so that the thief can rob them in silence the way God intended, and House can get back to his beauty sleep. Before he can work himself up to moving, there's a final slam of the apartment door, and House is finally left in peace. Of course, by then he's completely awake, and he might as well try to get to work only two hours late.

He spends a leisurely half-hour deciding between a Stones concert t-shirt and a Pink Floyd tour t-shirt, finally going with the wash-faded but classic Jim Morrison. He grabs the first button-down that isn't too wrinkled, and adds yesterday's blazer for the professional touch.

He swings by the fridge on his way out the door. The remains of Wilson's salad from last night are sitting front and center, in a handy to-go container, and House scoffs at it even though Wilson's not there to hear him. If he wouldn't eat Greek salad last night, there's no way it's worth swiping today. Instead, he's left wondering what Wilson took for himself, and whether it involves leftover chicken souvlaki, and if he's installed better security on his balcony door since the last time House picked the lock.

House grins, and by the time he's pulling open the bike's choke and revving the engine, he's humming the Mission Impossible theme to himself. When he walks through the doors of the hospital on the dot of 10:53, in his mind he's already got Chase and Cameron dressed in SWAT gear and rappelling down to Wilson's balcony from the roof. He's preemptively annoyed with Foreman, who's the weak link in the plan, despite his experience in all matters petty theft. He'll probably refuse to even synchronize his watch with the other two.

"House!" Cuddy's voice cuts through his elaborate plot, cutting it to shreds. "You were due in the clinic two hours ago."

"Technically," he informs her, vaguely saddened by her math skills and her turtleneck sweater, "one hour and fifty-four minutes ago. Don't worry, I'm sure those last six minutes are just going to fly by."

Cuddy smiles dangerously. "You'll be making up the time right now."

"I need to talk to my team," House protests. His breakfast was a hearty combination of a Vicodin and another Vicodin, and if he waits any longer to abscond with Wilson's lunch, it's going to be too late.

"You don't have a patient," Cuddy says. "You're not busy."

House rolls his eyes. "_Yet_," he says. "All evidence to the contrary, I'm sure this place is full of interesting cases."

"It's also full of clinic patients," Cuddy says. She nods to Brenda, and Brenda fixes her glare on House, like a guard dog that secretly wishes it was a wolf. "Get to work, or I'll tell the lab to ignore any tests you send them." Cuddy smiles again, and walks off.

"Hah!" House calls after her. "That's why I have my flying monkeys to do all my tests."

Cuddy waves over her shoulder that she's not listening. House leans a little more heavily on his cane and tries to stare Brenda down. It gets boring quickly, and his leg isn't prepared to have him stand around in childish game of stink-eye, so he grabs the first chart on the pile and glares his way to Exam Two.

Forty minutes and three bouts of the sniffles later, he's ready to take his revenge. The moron he's stuck with is ranting his head off, something about filling out forms. House stands up and opens the exam room door.

"Hey!" the guy shouts. "Aren't you going to help me?"

"Nope," House says. "Is that a problem?"

"Yeah, I got a problem! I--"

"See her?" House interrupts, nodding in Cuddy's direction. She's leaning over slightly to write in a chart on the nurses' station, and her skirt curves over her ass in a salute to horny teenagers' wet dreams everywhere.

"Do I ever," the guy answers, his outburst cut short. He leans forward to get a better look.

"She can fix your problem," House says. He has no idea what the guy's been yelling about, but in this case, that's the last thing that matters.

The guy's forehead wrinkles dubiously. "My insurance company says there's no way they're going to cover the tests," he says.

"That's what they want you to think," House says. "Lisa Cuddy's the one to talk to. If you know how to ask."

"Yeah?"

"Hey, that ass isn't just there for show," House says, and winks. "Trust me. I have more than a passing acquaintance."

"Damn," the guy says appreciatively.

"Mm-hmm," House agrees. "Go on, she's really a people person."

He thinks about staying to watch, but really, the price for that particular show is higher than he's willing to pay, so he declares it his coffee break and ducks into Cuddy's office. He stretches out on her couch for a nap, the most recent issue of _JAMA_ draped over his face to block out the morning sun. The next thing he knows, Cuddy has snatched the magazine off and pitched a dozen clinic charts on his chest, blinding him and knocking his breath out in one fell swoop.

"_You_ are not seeing daylight again until the clinic is clear," Cuddy says, in her most dangerous don't-mess-with-me voice. "It's not enough that I have _you_ staring at my chest all day--you have to send patients after me, too? I am not an insurance lawyer. And I am not _sleeping_ with you!"

House has heard Cuddy's scary voice before, and it's worth respecting, but he can't quite hold back a smirk. He opens his mouth to say something along the lines of "Think it might help with the mood swings if you were?" The only thing that saves him is Cameron sticking her head in the door. "House," she says. "We've got a patient."

House looks back and forth between his minion and his very pissed-off boss. "Symptoms?" he asks, knowing a reprieve when he sees one.

"Bloody vomit, blurred vision, disorientation, weakness--"

"It's food poisoning," Cuddy says. "House, get back to the clinic."

Cameron frowns. "And he's got a history of fibromyalgia."

"Huh," House says. "Interesting."

Cuddy rolls her eyes. "Oh, fine," she says. "But this is not over, House. I expect you back here this afternoon."

"Nothing says romance like refractory period," House says, leering at her. He's rewarded with Cameron's shocked face and Cuddy's glare, but he's already running through the battery of tests he's going to wring out of his newest puzzle before the day is over.

Yesterday's case has already been erased from the whiteboard, so House picks up a marker and starts writing the moment he steps into the conference room. The fibromyalgia's what grabbed his attention, and he's wondering what hack offered that diagnosis, when it could be symptomatic of so many more interesting things. He sticks it at the top of the list and underlines it.

"We need to rule out food poisoning as a proximate cause," Cameron says.

House nods. "Find out what he was eating before he decided to worship at the porcelain altar," he says. "Chase, get a chem panel, tox screen, CBC, and hang a banana bag for the dehydration. Foreman, see if he's oriented and get a history."

Once they've scattered, House thinks about lunch again, and leans back in his office chair to see if Wilson's in his office standing guard over his fridge. He looks around, sees nobody, and is just about to risk everything for food and glory, when he's paged to the ICU. Just as he suspected, Foreman is the weakest link in his plans for cat-burglar fame.

The patient, much to House's disgust, fills up most of the afternoon, and the only redeeming feature of the entire situation is that he manages to stay one step ahead of Cuddy. By the time he has two minutes to himself, it's four o'clock and Wilson's lunch must be a thing of the past by now. He swings by the cafeteria on his way back to his office and settles down with his iPod and the threat that he will fire the first fellow who interrupts his meal.

Which is when Wilson shows up and says, "Lunch?"

House looks at the feast spread in front of him, then back at Wilson.

"Okay, dumb question," Wilson says, coming in and sitting across from him. House is willing to recognize his existence enough to pull the headphones out of his ears. "Who'd you con into buying that for you?"

House sniffs disdainfully to let Wilson know that he feels horribly insulted. "I am capable of feeding myself," he says.

"You voluntarily went to the cafeteria--by yourself--and bought your own food?" Wilson shakes his head. "I think I might have fallen into Bizarro world somewhere between here and my office. These parallel universe fissures sometimes look so much like your office door, it's hard to tell." He eyes House's styrofoam container, which holds the biggest, messiest cheeseburger the cafeteria could provide. It's nearly buried under a mound of steak-cut fries, nestled in next to double-orders of gravy and ketchup.

"Nice to know how important your cardiovascular health is to you," Wilson says.

House takes a huge, crunching bite out of his apple and chews provocatively, staring Wilson down. Wilson sighs, the one that means he can't believe he's playing along, but he can't quite help himself. As far as sighs go, it's one of Wilson's all-time hits, and House's favourite out of his entire repertoire.

"Can I have a fry?" he asks, too nicely.

"Nope," House says complacently. "I need my vitamins."

"Right." Wilson puts on his _I'm a dignified professional_ mask, the one that fools so many people into thinking little Jimmy is mature beyond his years. House has always been able to see straight through it.

Or maybe, he thinks, trying to hide his grin as Wilson gazes at his fries longingly out of the corner of his eye, Wilson's always let him. House picks up a fry and carelessly dips it in the gravy, coating it thoroughly in artery-clogging goodness, and pops it in his mouth. Wilson watches the entire procedure with wide, dark eyes. When House flicks his tongue out to catch a drip of gravy on his upper lip, Wilson glances away.

House dunks another fry, and instead of eating it, he licks delicately at the gravy. It's the best part, after all, with none of the almost-vegetable pretentiousness of the potato.

The attack comes from his right, Wilson's left hand darting out and making for his fries. House pulls the styrofoam closer to his chest to protect it and smacks Wilson's hand with his gravy-covered fry.

"Ah ah ah," he says. "Eat your own."

Wilson wrinkles his nose at the gravy on his hand--there's a drip on his cuff as well--but he licks it off anyway. "I thought you took it," he says.

House blinks. "I was caught in the tenth level of hell all day."

"House, the clinic isn't that bad," Wilson says severely, but his lips curl into a small smile. "Anyway, Dante only described nine levels of hell."

"Only because he never worked for this hospital," House says. "Why isn't there a level of hell for idiots?"

"Good point," Wilson says. "You should arrange for that once you get there."

House lets his mouth drop open and slaps a hand to his cheek in shock. "Jimmy! Did you just tell me to go to hell?"

"And I even kiss my mother with this mouth," Wilson confirms. "Stop bogarting the fries."

"Which brings us back to the question of why you think I appropriated your lunch."

"'Stole' was going to be the word I used."

"Liberated."

"Thieved."

"Sent to a farm up north where it would have enough room and could spend the rest of its days chasing rabbits."

"House--"

"You actually think I took your lunch."

"That's...not exactly an unreasonable assumption."

"It is when you see me sitting here eating my honestly gotten cheeseburger."

"All right, fine, I'm sorry I assumed you would steal my food based on ten years of constant association with you," Wilson says, lifting his hands in surrender. "What's today's patient up to?"

House shrugs and picks up his burger. "Ask the vampires."

"You sent him to donate blood?"

"Entirely therapeutic," House mumbles around a monster bite of bun and cheese and beef. "Phlebotomy," he adds, spraying crumbs at Wilson just on principle.

"Hemochromatosis?" Wilson asks, and House nods. "What tipped you off?"

House swallows and answers, "Bronze elbows. You didn't even bother to check if your lunch was still in the fridge, did you?"

"I was busy," Wilson protests. He drops his eyes bashfully, the way he does when he's caught out in a lie, or flirting.

Or both, House thinks, and narrows his eyes. Wilson wanted House to take his lunch. Usually, once is an accident and twice is coincidence; it's not a plot until the third time. But House lives by his ability to see patterns before anyone else. He shoves his tray across the desk. "Here," he says.

Wilson glances up, surprised, and then gives him a suspicious look. House shrugs, and Wilson lifts his eyebrows before grabbing a handful of fries. He also takes the pickle. "Thanks," he says.

"You're buying dinner," House says. It's an empty protest, and Wilson knows it. They share the rest of the fries, taking turns at dipping, and House tries to describe the exact shade of red Cuddy's neck turns when she's furious at him. Wilson listens, and smiles, but it's his sneaky smile again, as if he's won.

Whenever he's not looking, House studies him, and decides exactly how he's going to hijack Wilson's plan.

* * *

 

House stands in the dawn-dim living room, looming over Wilson's untidy sprawl on his couch, holding an air-horn thoughtfully aloft.

Wilson's dreaming--House can see that he's in REM sleep--and by the sappy smile on his face, he's healing an adorable urchin, or saving a kitten from a tree, or propositioning an intern fifteen years too young for him. House runs his finger over the horn's trigger. The blast would be good for Wilson. There's nothing like starting a work day three hours early and half-way into a heart attack, he thinks, and as long as Wilson's playing games with him, he's not above playing games right back. Or, at least, shattering Wilson's eardrums and watching him tumble off the couch with a yelp, probably knocking his sneaky, manipulative head on the coffee table as he falls. It would be the perfect time to start yelling out questions like _what the hell are you up to?_ The only downside is that House hates asking questions when he doesn't already know the answer.

In the fridge, cradled oh-so-innocently between an open container of too-old-to-trust Szechuan beef and a bag of bagels, there is a sandwich with his name on it. Literally. The note is written in Wilson's spiky capitals, the ones he uses when he wants to be sure the message gets across.

House sighs and looks down at his toes, wriggling them against the rug. He's still wearing his pyjama pants and the t-shirt he slept in. A suspicious glare at the bathroom mirror while he peed confirmed that his hair is sticking out in more directions than usual, and he looks older than he ever wanted to. His leg hurts with a nagging ache, the kind he can't forget about by lying in bed and hoping it gets better--five years of trying have taught him better. And, worst, he has a feeling that no matter what he tries, Wilson isn't going to talk. All the airhorn will do is give away the fact that House is on to him, and Wilson will glare bloody murder at him before storming off in one of his little snits.

Over the last few weeks, Wilson's made a game attempt at calling the couch a bed, reinforcing the lie with a pathetic spread of House's second-best sheets, but House knows he wakes up with a crick in his neck most mornings. It's no wonder, the way he twists his back. He's got one arm pillowing his head while the other trails on the floor. The stretch of his t-shirt sleeves outlines his biceps, and he's kicked one foot free of the blanket, showing off a shin and a hint of knobby knee. House shifts his weight on his cane, staring at him absently, and watches the flicker of his expression. Finally, he sighs and tosses the air-horn onto Wilson's stomach. Wilson twitches and snuffles a bit, nuzzling into the couch cushions a little further, but he doesn't wake up.

House thinks Wilson had better appreciate everything House does for him, that's all.

He goes in to work ridiculously early even though he doesn't have a patient and he knows (but will never admit to Cuddy) that he's not scheduled at the clinic until the afternoon. By the time Cameron walks in he's already exhausted the distraction value of pacing, cursing, and beating his own high score at three-dimensional Tetris.

"Boo," he says conversationally as Cameron reaches to turn on the lights in the conference room.

She shrieks, leaps in the air, and spins to face him all in one movement. House is duly impressed with her potential as an acrobat, and blinks his approval while she clutches at her vest and catches her breath.

"House," she says. "You startled me."

"Yeah, well, you have a stupidly stringent moral code," House says. "I told you that would come back to haunt you some day."

Cameron sighs at him (she's clearly been around too long if she won't rise to his bait) and heads for the coffee machine. House closes the file he was reading--a case from seven years ago when even the autopsy proved inconclusive--and pushes himself to his feet. Today's the sort of day meant for marathoning classic General Hospital episodes and cranking Zeppelin on his iPod, and taking more Vicodin than he should (more than he usually does).

This, he thinks, is Wilson's fault: him and his sandwiches. The post-it notes, the special meals, are nothing more than invitations. Wilson clearly knows it; that's the reason behind all his little smiles.

Before he can go further with that thought, Cameron is holding up the coffee pot and staring at him strangely. "What?" he barks.

"You made coffee," she says, and waves at the conference table. "You signed off on my reports for our last patient. House, you _did paperwork_," she says. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," he mutters, but trust Cameron to shatter the pleasant misery of self-deception.

Since there's no patient, and Chase and Foreman will be arriving any moment to triple his annoyance, House heads out of the office to see what sort of havoc he can wreak as a thinking aid. In the clinic, he grabs a handful of lollipops from the jar on the counter and sucks them one by one until he's bored with the flavour, then sticks them to the backs and armrests of empty chairs in the waiting room. He sneaks into the peds lounge, the oncology lounge, and the coma guy's room and watches the same SoapNet rerun of General Hospital as it's broadcast from three different time zones. By the time he gets back to his office, Cuddy has sicced the janitors on him, and all his books have been dusted and rearranged into something resembling alphabetical order, where he knows he'll never manage to put his hand on the right reference the next time he checks. He can't even tell Cameron to redo it, because she's been making sad faces at his organizational system for the last two years--she's clearly under the janitors' vindictive influence.

House bangs through the door into the conference room and whaps Chase upside the head for plotting to marry Cameron to get his green card, only to leave her when he discovers that the baby is actually Foreman's. (It's possible, House supposes, that three times in a row is too much General Hospital, but without the keen insight of his experimental model, the world might never have known.) Chase chokes on the stir stick he was chewing, and there's chaos for a moment as he coughs and grabs for his mug only to spill water over half the business section and whatever paperwork Foreman was working on.

Cameron snatches at files and dripping bits of newspaper and sweeps them into the garbage. "We haven't found you a new patient yet," she snaps. "Three in a week would probably be a record for you, anyway."

"I'll call Guinness when we reach five," House says. "If the hospital doesn't have enough sick people, you need to expand your search parameters."

"You're hoping that someone will catch something miserable enough and mysterious enough, just so that you can figure them out?" Cameron says incredulously.

"There's that pesky moral code again," House says, but it's not worth teasing her when she's looking at him as if he's a five-year-old caught, crayons in hand, at the foot of his latest mural.

"Why don't you go play with Wilson if you don't have anything better to do?" Cameron asks impatiently.

Chase and Foreman both raise their eyebrows at that, and Chase busies himself mopping up his spill. They seem happy enough letting Cameron handle him. House hates being handled, but he hasn't resolved anything yet and it's nearly noon, so he leaves without answering and walks to Wilson's office even though he knows his fellows are watching.

Wilson must be out on rounds; House missed him coming in. He sits on the couch and looks around, but nothing's changed since the last time he was in here except the levels of boring in Wilson's in-tray. He lies down on the couch, testing its springs. It's more comfortable than the one in Cuddy's office, which was always meant for interior design and not napping. Still, he doesn't know how the hell Wilson slept here while Julie was off banging her tae kwon doe instructor or whoever it turned out to be. He's not sure why Wilson has apparently decided that camping out in his living room is the best solution to the problem, either. He closes his eyes and lets his mind drift, making connections.

When he wakes up, the solution is as easy as it always is once he finds it. He heads back to his office and makes a phone call, then waits for Wilson to happen by. It doesn't take long, and Wilson looks tired enough that he's probably looking for a distraction as much as House is. House jerks his head to wave Wilson into the office, and waits while he drops into the chair by the door.

"Bad day?" House asks.

"Three," Wilson says, meaning fatal prognoses, and House nods. It's not bad but it's never good, and there's no use telling Wilson he should up and change specialties ten years into his practice.

"Have you eaten yet?" he asks.

Wilson looks at him seriously for a moment, then shrugs. "I hope you keep a glucagon kit around here somewhere," he says, putting up his feet. "I could die of hypoglycemia."

House tosses one of Cameron's stash of granola bars across the office. It slaps into Wilson's chest, and he tears it open immediately. "You're an idiot," House tells him.

"What?" Wilson says, mouth full of granola. "I was busy."

"Liar," he says, and his voice is almost fond. "You used that excuse yesterday." He can't help smiling slightly, and that's enough for Wilson to glance at him warily.

"What's going on, House?" he's asking, and it's right then that the door opens and a kid in shades and an eye-searing orange jacket sticks his head in. "Somebody order a pizza?" he asks. "Nineteen ninety-five."

House hauls himself up and goes across the office, digging his wallet out. "Got change for a twenty?"

The kid holds the box out of reach. "Hey, man, I told you on the phone I wasn't delivering to a hospital for less than a five buck tip. And I asked directions from some lady and she said to say you'd better learn to run before she finds you. Word to the wise."

"Thanks," House says, and hands over the twenty and another five before heading back to his chair. "You can dump the pizza on the suave doctor with his mouth hanging open."

Wilson waits until the delivery guy shoves the box at him and leaves before he speaks. "You bought me a pizza," he says.

House leans back in his chair and smiles blissfully. "And pissed off Cuddy doing it. Who says life is a zero-sum game?" Wilson gives him a look, and House shrugs. "You looked like you were having a crappier day than Chase," he says, as if that explains something.

It seems to, because Wilson gives him a sideways look that's almost suspicious, but he opens the pizza box and practically starts drooling the instant the spicy scent of Italian sausages and mushrooms fills the office. House watches him close his eyes and breathe in through his nose, and his stomach knots a little; it feels stupidly good to watch Wilson unwind and let his shoulders slump away from their ordinary tension.

Wilson doesn't reach for a slice right away. He's staring at House again, and there's something uncertain in his eyes. "Where's your lunch?" he asks.

"Where's my airhorn?" House asks right back. He props his leg up on the desk--the morning's ache has dissolved, so he must finally have found that magic number of pills.

"You gave it up. You're going to promise not to use it if I give it back," Wilson says.

"Nope," House says comfortably. "Got to keep you on your toes."

There's hesitation in Wilson's eyes, but that's nothing new. It's the quality of his look that should have House running for the hills, except he's made his decision and this is his game now. "Here," Wilson says, and takes the horn out of his coat pocket. He pitches it at House, and he catches it although the throw went wide.

"You're sharing," he says, to answer Wilson's question about his lunch.

Wilson smiles diffidently. "They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

House snorts. "That's a good anatomical argument for why love is crap."

"That's a...pretty nauseating thing to say to a guy you just bought a pizza for."

"Hey, I wanted to make sure there'd be enough left for me."

"Maybe I don't want to share."

"Maybe this isn't just about what you want any more."

There's another pause while Wilson takes that in. The silence stretches out between them, and it's calm and challenging both at once. House is the better man at this sort of chicken, and he watches the small shifts in Wilson's expression, trying to name them all. There's something rueful and almost a grin when he realizes he's been found out, and then a flash of deeper uncertainty, and maybe, at the end, anticipation.

A glance through the conference room windows shows Cameron at work at the computer, wearing her glasses and frowning slightly at the screen. House grabs the airhorn, raises his eyebrows, and heads out by the balcony door. When he reaches the conference room door, he slides it open silently, puts his arm through, and presses the horn's trigger.

The blast of sound is even louder than he could have hoped, and Cameron leaps to her feet with a screech worthy of an unsuspecting cat shoved under a shower. "House! What the hell--"

House plasters his best innocent look on his face. "Moral code," he explains. "Invites retribution from the universe."

When he gets back to his office, Wilson's curled up in his chair, trying desperately to muffle his guffaws. He's put the box open on the desk, and House grabs a slice before the cheese can coagulate any further.

It turns out there's plenty of pizza to go around.

* * *

_Inquiry_

The post-it taped to the tupperware lid says, "Seriously, House. I'm not going to have time to go for lunch between meetings. Hands off." The threats on the five post-its taped to the other sides of the container are variations on the theme. House smiles, and checks the sandwich--it's roast beef and watercress, with sprouts and some kind of spicy relish House is sure Wilson calls "chutney" simply because he can--and tucks it out of sight behind the mayonnaise.

He closes the fridge, and he feels his smile growing despite himself. A crazy sort of expectation moves through him, the type that comes when he can see the bluff on another player's face during a big hand of poker, and he knows it's time to go all in. It's half anticipation, like when he's lying in bed in the morning, wondering if it's worth it to get up until he starts imagining the depths to which Cuddy's cleavage might plunge on the one day he isn't there to appreciate it. The other half is the same calm certainty he gets when there's one perfect hole left in a puzzle. He can always tell, a moment before it happens, that his mind will offer up exactly the piece that fits, snug up against the edges of all the clues he's gathered so far.

This time it's no different. House can read far more than Wilson's pointless threats on the post-its. Instead he sees promises, and the kind of absurd, hopeful question that they can both pretend was never asked, if either of them decides the answer is no.

He doesn't bother to tell Wilson he's leaving; their shifts start at the same time, but Wilson likes to arrive ridiculously early and settle in before his morning rounds. House grabs his motorcycle jacket and heads out, stowing his cane and climbing aboard the bike. It's bright enough for sunglasses, and warm enough for the first time since winter that House has a sudden urge to find the twistiest back road he can and gun the engine until his knee nearly touches the pavement with every curve. He wants to feel the wind biting his cheeks and the first bugs of spring between his teeth. When he finally realizes the time, he has to speed all the way to the hospital just to be three minutes early.

He catches sight of Cuddy as he saunters in, and he figures the sunglasses give him free rein to check her out as long as he likes. She glances at the clinic's clock and shakes her head at him repressively. Being on time is no excuse for any of his stupid stunts, she's saying, and he quirks an eyebrow right back at her. He takes his shades off and tucks them inside his jacket, then makes his way across the clinic to her. He pauses, then tilts his head and peers down at her, doing his best "has that second head _always_ been there?" stare.

"What?" Cuddy asks. Her face is a perfect mixture of annoyance and nervousness. She backs off a step, and House follows her, getting right up close.

"I think..." he says, leaning in and letting his cane fall against the admit desk. "Hmm."

"House--" She's quickly winding up to pissed-off, but at the perfect moment, he goes in, cradling her face in his hands and kissing her full on the mouth.

Cuddy doesn't haul back and slap him immediately, which is a victory all on its own. House takes his sweet time exploring the possibilities, and even tastes a hint of mint when her tongue swirls against his. When he pulls back, it's not without a trace of disappointment.

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?" Cuddy demands, recovering faster than he would have given her credit for, though a bright red flush has moved up her neck to her cheeks.

House has always loved that shade of furious on her. He only regrets the fact that he'll never know if it goes all the way down. "Yep," he sighs remorsefully. "I think you've turned me gay."

Cuddy's mouth falls open, but she seems incapable of breathing, let alone retorting. House snags his cane again, and turns to the clinic at large. "Anyone seen Wilson around?" he asks of the room generally, and Brenda nods towards the elevators. House grins at her in thanks. He gets in the elevator even though he'll be sharing a tiny enclosed space with at least three disease vectors; the escape from Cuddy's wrath is worth it. The last thing he sees as the doors roll closed is Cuddy, astonished, reaching up to touch her fingers to her lips.

It's a thing of beauty, really.

His good mood takes a hit when the doors open on the fourth floor to Foreman staring at him dourly, Cameron standing with her arms crossed, and Chase holding a chart.

"Patient," Foreman says, stepping into his path. House rocks back on his heels. The elevator doors almost clip his backpack behind him.

"Heard of those," he says. "I'm pretty sure they're not for me. I've never met one yet that would leave off dying until the commercials."

"_House_," Cameron says, scandalized. "He's been seizing intermittently since six this morning--"

"Don't care," House answers. He jostles through the gap between annoyances, using his shoulder and his cane to run the fellow-shaped blockade. They all turn in perfect synchronization and start following him, spreading out across the hall until he feels like the goose at the head of the vee. He steps up his pace, not because he thinks he can outrun them, but because he's hoping they won't be able to avoid every busy nurse and unsteady patient. He'll scrape free of them when they stop to apologise and untangle themselves. Apparently, though, the hospital is overly familiar with his walking conferences, and everyone scrambles out of the way before he can turn quickly enough to whip one of his goslings into their paths. Damn.

"House, this is ridiculous," Foreman says, dodging a wheelchair but keeping up.

"You can see how that argument is stopping me in my tracks." House stops abruptly in front of Wilson's office door, and Foreman and Cameron overshoot him, heading for the conference room and already bouncing diagnoses off each other. When House turns around, Chase is still in perfect flying formation. He raises his eyebrows mildly and says, "The tox screen was clean."

"The tox screen is _always_ clean," House grumbles, and Chase shrugs agreeably. "Run it again," House tells him. "I'm feeling lucky."

"You must be," Chase drawls, "if you think you're going to survive after what you did to Cuddy."

"She didn't look too unhappy from what I heard," Foreman says, turning back to them.

"It was three seconds ago," House says. "Has anyone not heard about it?"

"Heard about what?" Cameron asks, with a hurt look on her face.

House smiles, feeling deliciously evil. "Oh, Cameron," he says. "I'm sorry. The devil's work has already been done. I hope you've learned something about being in the right place at the right time."

"Um, maybe we should just--" Chase starts herding Cameron towards the conference room.

"Run the tox screen again," Foreman agrees, looking at Cameron as if she's the reincarnation of Mount Vesuvius and he's in the prime position to be playing Pompei.

"I'm ignoring you now," House lets them know, and following a grand tradition, he bursts in on Wilson without knocking.

Before he can speak, Wilson holds up one finger for silence while he signs a report. After a second, he looks up calmly and says, "Cuddy turned you gay?"

House blinks and takes a moment to shut the door behind him. "I was hoping to make it here faster than the gossip," he admits.

"You haven't been much of a sprinter since the infarction," Wilson comments, as if House is a rather disappointing turn-out in a race he had money on.

House snorts. He can't quite stop the twist of his lips that he knows Wilson will recognize as a smile. "I had to do some doctoring between here and there," he offers as an explanation. "Something about recurrent adult-onset grand mal episodes."

Wilson's mouth crooks up at the corners. "House, are you ignoring your cases?"

"Cases, plural, is a very generous assumption in the first place."

Wilson gives his stack of charts a rueful look. "Of course it is."

House taps his cane against the floor and glances around the room. For once, he doesn't feel like fiddling with Wilson's stress ball or set his pendulum marbles clacking. "Your little notes said you were going to be in meetings all day," he says.

"Oh, so you do read them."

"Your threats are so vague that they're meaningless," House says. "You can treat today."

Wilson sighs, but in his mental catalogue of every sigh Wilson's ever breathed in his presence, House reads it as amused tolerance. Wilson shakes his head and pushes himself up from his desk chair. "Did it ever occur to you that I might cut you off due to terminal embarrassment?" he asks, putting his hands on his hips.

House widens his eyes, affecting innocence. "Before or after I considered the possibility of Cuddy killing me with her laser death eyes?"

"After," Wilson answers equably, "since I hear my name only came into it once you'd disabled the Death Star with a lucky shot."

"The Force was with me," House says, lifting his cane into lightsaber position. "Do you whisper this kind of sweet nothing in Cuddy's ear, or am I the only--"

"House. We're not going to do this if--" Wilson stops short of admitting they're doing anything--that House's announcement was anything more than his daily prank. He hesitates, then says, "I might want to wait until I feel I've got a shred of dignity left before pursuing this."

"_Aww_," House whines. "But that'll be _forever_."

"Thanks."

"At least the lasers would have been quick."

"Oh, I wouldn't count on that. She probably wouldn't have aimed to kill."

"Castration nightmares?"

"Like any good Jewish boy." Wilson's smiling, but it's all surface.

House frowns. "I'm not subtle. At work."

"Trust me," Wilson says dryly, rolling his eyes. "I know."

"I'm not going to be." House thumps his cane back to the floor and glares ferociously out the window. They're getting dangerously close to having A Talk, and his hands tighten on his cane because he wants to bolt but there's no way in hell he wants Wilson to know that.

Wilson raises a hand to the back of the neck. "Are we...?"

"What?" House snaps. As far as he's concerned, whatever Wilson thinks he needs to say is just going to be a distraction from the important issue. House has already kissed Cuddy; what else does Wilson need, an engraved invitation? As declarations of devotion go, he thinks that one should trump anything involving mere _words_.

"House! We've been--it's been seduction through sandwiches! I'm not going to base coming out at work on the fact that you didn't take my lunch out of the fridge this morning!"

House looks back at Wilson then, startled into not running or moving or, apparently, breathing. Finally, he gets out, "You _moron_," but that's where he's stopped cold.

The sheer panic that takes over Wilson's face makes House feel worse than he has any right to, considering how well this started and the trainwreck that it is now. "Oh, for God's sake," he says, and takes two steps forward, grabs Wilson's shoulder with his free hand, and pulls him into a kiss.

Wilson tries to get some words out around House's mouth, so House kisses him harder. He moves back just long enough to mutter, "Shut _up_, you're ruining it," and then he dives back in, and this time he's caught Wilson's mouth open and he tastes him; Wilson's like morning coffee, hot and rich and wet. Wilson's _still_ trying to say something, and House nips his lip to tell him to get with the program. When Wilson's hand settles at his waist, House finally knows he's been heard.

He squeezes Wilson's shoulder and shoves closer, until Wilson's palms are both resting just above his hips. Wilson thumbs his way under House's button down and starts searching for a way past the t-shirt too. House hums satisfaction into Wilson's mouth, and draws away, letting it play out; Wilson catches his lips again and they both explore a bit until the kiss ends.

"_Now_ can we shut up about this?" House asks, directing his question to Wilson's tie.

Wilson's adam's apple bobs. House can feel his voice vibrate through his chest, where they're still pressed together. "Jesus," he says, "your stubble scratches. Don't you _ever_ shave?"

House shifts his weight and breathes. "I have a complicated schedule--"

"So I should just ask Cameron?"

"If she can hear you over the crying and the ripping up of her 'Mrs. Gregory House' diary."

"Are you sure she's the only one whose heart you broke?"

"Of course. I've actually increased the odds for Foreman and Chase."

"Hmm," Wilson says repressively, and proceeds to prove that his tendency to lecture isn't limited to when he's talking.

House grabs the back of Wilson's neck and pulls his head in hard enough to reply that _he_ isn't the one with the wandering eye, so Wilson better not be getting on his high horse. Wilson rocks his hips forward to indicate that he's never had any complaints, thank you very much. House scrapes his beard across Wilson's cheek and bites down on his earlobe, reminding him that Wilson's the one living on House's couch after his wife kicked him out.

Wilson's hands start drifting interesting places in a very convincing argument that maybe the couch isn't the best place for him anymore.

"Fine," House says, when they've discussed the situation at length. "But you better not expect your lunches to be safe anymore."

After all, he's going to have to keep his strength up.

* * *

_Sophistication_

 

The only problem with seduction by lunches, House thinks, as he lurks behind a potted plant keeping a weather eye out for Hurricane Cuddy, is that it leaves four hours at least of boring afternoon before he can drag Wilson into his bed to prove that this morning in Wilson's office wasn't anything resembling a fluke. House never thought a time would come when he'd be grateful for a clinic full of patients, but right now the usual post-lunch dip in the moron population of common colds and sprained ankles is proving to be an incredible annoyance. As soon as the crowd grows enough to cover his hasty exit from the building, he's out of here, so of course it's while he's plotting recon that Cuddy sneaks up behind him (the mystery of how she manages it in those heels persists), and says, "Epilepsy? _That's_ your big revelation?"

House doesn't jump like a scared schoolgirl (the only reason being that he can't, physically, remains beside the point), and says, "Stop trying to haul me back to the dark side, woman! I've already told you I won't father your devil child."

The sweet, innocent days when he'd struck Cuddy entirely wordless and managed to escape her clutches relatively unscathed--also known as the five minutes this morning after he'd kissed her--are very much part of the past. Cuddy's angry, but it's not the fun kind. She leans in and whispers furiously, "Your patient presented with no history of epilepsy, no precipitating event, and is now in his eighth hour of recurrent seizures. Get upstairs and start testing."

"But _Mom_," House whines. The hospital entrance is so near, and yet so far. He's certain that if he'd tunneled his way to freedom, then he could have called Wilson and convinced him that it was in his best interest to cut out of work early. "I don't _wanna_ treat my patient today. Can't I do it _tomorrow_?"

"House, stop frightening the clinic patients by letting them see just how unprofessional you can get."

House turns with a sneer to an eight-year-old girl with a bloody dishrag pressed to her shin, who's watching them wide-eyed. He sticks his tongue out at her. "_You're_ going to get a tetanus shot," he tells her meanly, and it's very satisfying to see her lip start to tremble.

Cuddy hauls on his arm and pushes him towards the elevator with an exasperated, "Upstairs. _Now_." House certainly isn't pouting as he goes; his plan to call Wilson and mess with his head is possible from any place there's a phone.

He heads into his office and takes a seat behind his desk. If he wheels his chair back and cranes his neck enough, he can see the top of Wilson's head through their balcony windows as he bends over his paperwork. House dials, and sees Wilson reach for his phone without glancing at it.

"I can't believe you're that boring even when no one's watching," he says.

"You're watching," Wilson points out, which is true, but the sheer unfairness of Wilson's voice, warm and teasing, takes the wind out of House's sails. "What are you wearing?" Wilson asks, and _that_ makes House's heart stop and then start up again in something that's probably nothing close to a healthy rhythm.

"If you'd snuck out of the hospital with me, then you'd know," he answers petulantly, and Wilson's chuckling breath in his ear is going to drive him crazy sooner rather than later if this keeps up.

"Cuddy caught you in the clinic?" Wilson asks. He looks up and House knows he's smiling, mostly by the set of his shoulders.

"I told her I was there working my regularly assigned clinic hours," House says. It's a grand lie, one of his best, the kind he tells when he knows there's no expectation at all of being believed. The kind he only tells to Wilson.

"No wonder she got wise," Wilson says. "You probably could have escaped if you'd left through the ER."

"Bike's too far away then," House complains.

"Or you wanted Cuddy to catch you," Wilson says. "You know I wouldn't leave early today; I've got consults until four, then rounds."

House thinks of lunches; of sandwiches and salads, of pizza and leftovers from when Wilson cooks. There's something strangely comfortable in knowing that the last hurdle--the moment when he kissed Wilson so hard that they can't pretend he didn't--is behind them. Whatever their flirting was hiding before, it's out in the open now, undeniably real. House thinks idly about panicking, about dumping Wilson's stuff in the street and changing his locks. Instead, he takes out one of his rainy-day stash of lollipops from the clinic and starts fellating it pointedly in Wilson's direction.

There's a hitch of breath on the phone line. "I'll let you know when I get off," Wilson says.

"I hope so," House answers, sliding the sucker out of his mouth with a satisfying pop.

Wilson's breathing over the phone line is his only answer. Across the balcony and through two windows, he looks like a deer that's been caught in the headlights only to find out that he _likes_ it. House is starting to wonder if they couldn't start the party a little early, glass walls or no glass walls, except that Cameron bursts in through the conference room door waving test results at him and saying words. He glares at her until she rolls her eyes and leaves, only to start in on Chase and Foreman in the other room.

"Gotta go," House says. "A three way jello wrestling match just broke out in my conference room."

"I'll find out later what flavour," Wilson promises.

House grins, and he's glad that no one can possibly question his hitching, hipshot limp as he bangs through the conference room door. "What doesn't our tox screen normally test for?" he barks, standing by the whiteboard and balancing his cane on the tip of his finger.

"We can't test for every known toxin," Chase says. "The lab looks for the common poisons, codeine, morphine, acetominophens--"

"Why do you keep harping on the tox screen?" Foreman interrupts. "It was clean. _Twice_. If any of us was still on our original idea after the tests came back, you'd get after us for unoriginal thinking."

"Can't teach hunches," House says with a shrug. He switches the cane from his index finger to his middle finger without missing a beat, and shows it to Foreman.

Foreman stares back at him deadpan. "It's not drugs," he says.

"Oh, lighten up, Foreman. Drugs are fun." House pops a Vicodin to illustrate the point, gives the whiteboard a cursory look, and whines, "Can't we just cut his brain in half?"

"Because that'll stop his seizures, or because you want to kill him and go home?" Foreman demands.

"Why limit ourselves to one choice?" House asks innocently. "I'm pretty sure if he's dead, he won't seize anymore."

"Maybe," Chase says. "We haven't been able to get a history."

"Probably," House corrects. "In eighty percent of epilepsy cases--"

"_If_ it's epilepsy," Cameron says.

"Don't you want to find the underlying cause before you start severing his corpus callosum?" Foreman asks.

"Technically, it would be _you_ doing the severing," House says.

"That sounds a lot like a no," Foreman says.

"Just a very strong maybe," House answers. "And what are you two staring at?" he demands, whirling on Cameron and Chase.

"You--don't want to know what's causing the seizures?" Chase asks, looking about as surprised as he would if his mother came back from the grave and told him she really did love him after all.

House lets his cane fall, catches it, and hooks it on the whiteboard. "Maybe if we _treat_ the seizures, they'll _go away_," he says slowly, kind of pissed off with his own amazing teaching methods that have caused his serfs to aspire to the bourgeosie. "Remind me again about this hospital thing. That's the place where we make people better, right?"

"No, it's more than that," Cameron says, studying him and frowning slightly in a way that would be devastatingly attractive if House was the type to fall for invasive personal analysis and a cute pair of glasses. Or, he supposes, women. "You're not just treating the patient to confirm a diagnosis. You haven't even diagnosed him at all. You're just hoping--"

"Hey, House," Wilson says, opening the door and sticking his head into the conference room. "Eight o'clock good?" He glances at Chase and Foreman, who blink back at him like he's grown another arm, and possibly a third eyeball in the middle of his forehead. Cameron's still watching House, trying to figure him out. "For that, uh, L Word marathon...?" Wilson adds, blushing like a lovesick teenager.

House rolls his eyes and fights back a smirk. He's kind of horrified to realize it isn't working, and he's grinning at Wilson like an idiot. "Get your filthy mind out of the gutter," he says. "We wouldn't want you getting distracted at work when you're trying to _treat a patient_."

"Right," Wilson says, "I was confusing me with you again." With a quirk of a smile (he _still_ seems to think he's winning, and House is going to have to teach him differently very soon), he ducks out again.

Cameron steeples her fingers together and looks up. "There's something else going on," she finishes, nodding decisively to herself.

"Great," House says, "time to figure out what."

Cameron looks up and blinks at him. "You're--"

"The patient," House says. "Not me. Find a more accurate tox screen, or start digging around in his brain."

He claps his hands, and they scatter like pigeons. By six o'clock, everything's just as nonsensical as it was at noon, but the patient's finally stabilizing on the concoction of anti-seizure drugs House has ordered pumped into him. That's good enough for House, who delegates the weekend pager with a certain relish to Cameron ("Moral code," he reminds her, when she whines), and heads home.

Wilson's already there.

House's stomach knots into something he'd call nervousness if he were a sixteen-year-old girl writing in her diary, but he's not, so he calls it annoyance and snaps at Wilson for showing up before he said he would.

Wilson gives him the kind of sideways smile that he's always shyly directing at women, so House adds, "I'm not your girlfriend. You look like a Labrador."

"Are those two thoughts connected?" Wilson asks. He's got his hands on his hips and he's stepping closer.

"Peripherally," House mutters, refusing to back up any further when he feels the door behind him. Wilson gets closer and suddenly those hands are on House's hips instead of his own, and House's dick has been halfway interested all day (since the phone call that, he admits, was supposed to do this to Wilson and not to him), but now Wilson's thumbs are digging into the hollow just in front of his hipbones and suddenly things have reached a decidedly new point. It's irritating, the way Wilson's the one moving into his space, so House goes on the offensive and kisses him.

House's mouth knows every minute of the eight and a half hours since he kissed Wilson last. In clinic hours it would be an eternity; he's halfway astounded to find out that in apart-from-Wilson hours, it feels even longer. He slips one hand under Wilson's arm to rub the muscles of his back, to feel more than he could when Wilson was insulated by his suit jacket and lab coat. Wilson makes a noise--House can _feel_ it--and then he moves his lips to House's ear.

"Why didn't you take my lunches?" he asks. His thumbs are rubbing idle circles just above the waistband of House's jeans, then dipping down against House's skin.

"You made them for me," House says, into the line of Wilson's jaw, where he can run his tongue and feel Wilson shiver.

"You can't let anyone do anything for you," Wilson says, softly, short-breathed. "That's why?"

House contemplates that while he tastes the warm spot just behind Wilson's ear. "I can't let _you_ do anything for me," he says, "if I don't know why." He nudges his hips forward--Wilson's fingers are splayed against the front of his thighs, and it's frustrating and hot in equal measure.

"You figured it out," Wilson says, and then he's undoing House's fly and sliding his hands inside.

"You're a manipulative bastard," House says, and it's nearly a growl. "Fuck. Wilson."

"Bedroom," Wilson says, and House follows him; somehow he's managed to keep a hold of his cane throughout their mutual groping session.

This should be terrifying, House thinks again, stopping in the doorway and watching as Wilson unbuttons his shirt and drops his pants. Wilson's moved in without him noticing, so House wonders when Wilson decided he'd make House want him without noticing that either. Except when Wilson turns to him and strips him slowly, then pushes him on to the bed, House can't remember when he didn't want this. When Wilson wasn't kissing him, when his hands weren't seeking out places to touch, when his body wasn't a heavy hot weight against House's.

It's not perfect. There are tricks to this that House hasn't figured out, little puzzles like why touching Wilson's fourth rib makes him push House away, but touching the fifth makes him groan and lean closer. House watches him, taking Wilson's erection in his hand and sliding it, hot and hard, through his fist, until Wilson shudders and comes. House catalogues reactions: the way Wilson's eyes darken, the way his fingers move against House's dick; he studies everything until Wilson slides lower and all there is left to think is: Wilson's _mouth_, and it's the last thought House remembers, for a long time.

 

* * *

 

When House wakes up on Monday, he's pressed awkwardly into Wilson's side in a tangle of sheets, and he knows what Mystery Seizure Guy has. He wakes Wilson with a blowjob, something soft that turns rough before it's over. He jerks himself while he sucks, Wilson's hands in his hair and his voice in House's ears, saying, "Fuck, House, I love y--oh, hell--" and when it ends House says, "I want pancakes and a ride to the hospital," and Wilson says, "I take it back."

"No do-overs," House says. "You said it." That's all he needs to say, really; if Wilson can't read the rest from the fact that House hasn't kicked him out of bed, then he's not worth the effort. So House drowses lazily, smiling into his pillow, while Wilson gets up and cooks. An hour later, when House bursts into the conference room, Wilson's at his side still looking halfway debauched. It's distracting.

"It's an ondansetron overdose," House says. "Explains the symptoms that pointed to sarcoidosis as well as the weight loss and seizing." And then, because of the way Wilson's hair flops in back where he hasn't blow-dried it, he adds, "Also, Wilson and I spent most of the weekend having sex."

Chase looks about as shocked as he would if House sincerely praised his effort and his contribution to the team. "_Why?_" he asks, his accent broadening the word with incredulity.

Wilson grins faintly and hitches a shoulder. "He didn't steal my lunch for a week," he says, slanting an ironic look at House.

"Doesn't mean I didn't eat," House says, entirely satisfied. "Got my protein."

Foreman grimaces. "What makes you think we'd _ever_ want to know that?"

House demonstrates. "Wanna grab a bite?" he asks Wilson, with a waggle of his eyebrows.

"I could eat," Wilson says, sticking his hands in his pockets and raising his shoulders a bit. He seems to be enjoying Foreman's squirming, Chase's befuddlement, and Cameron's halibut-smacked look, in a diffident sort of way. That's good enough for House, so he turns to Foreman.

"See?" he says. "Very simple, yet very effective, way to creep you out."

Foreman rolls his eyes. "I'm going to treat the patient," he says, grabbing the chart and escaping.

Wilson glances at Cameron and Chase, but they apparently haven't recovered the power of speech. "Where do you want to have lunch?" he asks House, opening the conference room door and heading out.

House grins as they walk along, shoulders bumping, completely in sync. He knows that he's been well and truly seduced by sandwiches and by stealth, and by one Dr. James E. Wilson, who seems to think he's won something after all. "Doesn't matter," House says. "I already know what's on the menu."

 

_end_


End file.
